The Ruins of Gorlan Reading of the Books
by SPN221B
Summary: So I've decided to do a reading of the books thing. Though unlike some, I, Will,Finish! I promise you all this. Plus there is a quite a big twist. Look inside for more details on that. Rated T to be safe.
1. Plot Twist!

**So this is my go at a reading of the books stories! I will tackle all twelve. But I just warn you... There is a huge twist here. I'm only using two characters! Halt and Will shall be reading these alone, while dealing with some personal demons. And the next chapter shall begin the reading of the books! Please enjoy!**

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Everyone cheered as Maddie, the first female Ranger, received her silver oakleaf. All except the one who's cheers she wanted to be hearing. Her mentor though was nowhere to be found. And suddenly, she felt rather alone. He had said he would be there. Why wasn't he? Last time she checked, he wasn't one to break promises.

Will very well wanted to be there. But he was right now talking, or like screaming, at his mentor. He hated Halt right now. He thought he was going to the gathering, to watch his apprentice, but Halt had said that there was something very important he needed to talk to him about. Will had reluctantly agreed, a sinking feeling in his gut telling him he wouldn't like what he was going to hear.

"No! You can't! You can't retire! I still need you! I..." Will yelled, shaking the little cabin, with tears streaming down his face.

And after he heard what he stopped abruptly. He look down in shame as he cried softly. Halt couldn't help, but feel slightly guilty. He reached over to reinsure his former apprentice and was surprised to hear him repeating a small chant of sorts.

"You can't. I still need you. You can't." he repeated over and over again.

Will looked up at the touch of his mentor. It did nothing to stop the flow of tears, but did calm him some. He looked at the fatherly figure and fell into his arms, sobbing. Halt held the him, and for a moment they were mentor and apprentice again. The former mentor had known that breaking this news to Will would break his heart. But he no choice. He had to tell Will first. He trusted him and depended on him. So doing this would be the only way.

"Will," Halt urged gently. "You don't still me. You've grown up. You had an apprentice of your own. That should be enough proof by itself."

But Will shook his head. "But it's not. You're the only one who ever cared. I can't lose you. You're all I have."

Halt rubbed his former apprentice's back. He wished he could say something to disapprove Will's last words, but he couldn't. Deep down, he knew Will was right. But how could he say that?

For a long time, they stood there. Will crying, Halt holding him. Will was grateful for his mentor being there for him. Because in his eyes, Halt could do no wrong. And Halt was also perfect to him. If only he knew that Halt wasn't. Yet it was to late. For if you told him that now, he would never believe you. As Halt went to speak, a robotic voice spoke first.

"Cabin on official lock down."

It was so faint, at first the two Ranger's thought they were imagining it. But as a stack of books appeared on the table with a note, they both knew they were not imagining this. It was all real. All to real.

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 **And that's the main plot! So as Will and Halt deal with their little problem, to leave the cabin. They must finish all tweleve books. See ya in the next chapter and please review!**


	2. Prologue

**As much as I'd love to say it I do not own Ranger's Apprentice. All rights go to John Flanagan**

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 **The Ruins of Gorlan: Prologue**

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Will picked up the note and read it aloud.

"Hello there Rangers! If you're reading this, you may be locked in a cabin! But don't worry! As soon as you finish these books, you're free to leave! In the meanwhile, six more people, shall be joining you soon. Take as long as you would like reading these! I shall supply you with an unlimited supply of coffee, and food. Here's a list of who should read and in what order. Will, Halt, Lady Paulien, Gilan, Baron Arald, Horace, Cassandra, and Maddie. Well enjoy your time together. And Will, try to prevent the death of everyone."

The two Rangers looked at each other, eyebrows raised. "Well then..."

And right after that, there were six other people there.

"Where the heck are we?" Baron Arald was the first to raise the question.

"In my, Will's, cabin." Halt corrected himself.

"And no one ask why!" Will shouted. "I'll explain. You see, we're locked in here until we finish these books."

"Well then read!" Gilan said.

"In this note," Will held up the note, "it says I am to read first. So here goes nothing."

Picking up the first book, Will started to read..

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 **MORGARATH,**

"Wait! Who writes a story about him?" Gilan asked.

Will didn't get two words in and he was already being stopped. Looking slightly annoyed at Gilan, he answered, "I don't know, but if you're going to interrupt every other word, leave."

Gilan was silent after that.

 **LORD OF THE MOUNTIANS OF RAIN AND NIGHT, former Baron of Gorlan in the Kingdom of Araluen, looked over his bleak, rainswept domain, and for perhaps the thousandth time, cursed.**

"Wow. He wasn't a very pleasent fellow was he?" Maddie asked.

Halt shook his head. "You don't know the half of it."

 **This was all that was left to him now-a jumble of rugged granite cliffs, tumbled boulders and icy mountains. Of sheer gorges and steep narrow passes. Of gravel and rock, with never a tree or sign of green to break the monotony.**

"Oh no. Poor Morgarath he's ganna die and no ones going to even care." Will inturrupted himself this time, making everyone laugh.

 **Even though it had been fifteen years since he had been driven back into the forbidding realm that had become his prison, but he could still remember the pleasant green glades and the thickly forested hills of his former fief. The streams filled with fish and the fields rich with crops and game. Gorlan had been a beautiful, living place. The Mountains of Rain and Night were dead and desolate.**

"Wait, isn't Gorlan dead and desolate now also? Its castle has crumbled and there's no green life there anymore really. How did the castle come down anyway?" the young female Ranger asked. "Castles don't just fall down."

Halt let out a grim smile[1] while everyone else just shrugged. Only he and and two other people knew that answer. Those two people were now dead.

 **A platoon of Wargals,**

At the mere mention of the Wargals, shivers of fear went through almost everyone in the room. Maddie and Lady Paulien were the exceptions. Maddie because she had never seen it and Lady Paulien because she had nerves of steel.

 **...was drilling in the castle yard bellow him. Morgarath watched them for a few seconds, listening to the guttural, rhythmic that accompanied their movements. They were stocky, misshapen beings, with features that were halfway human, but with a long, brutish muzzle and fangs like a bear or a large dog.**

 **Avoiding all contact with humans, the Wargals had lived and bred in these remote mountains since ancient times. No one in living memory had ever set eyes upon one, but rumors and legends had persisted of a savage tribe of semi-intelligent beasts in the mountains. Morgarath, planning a revolt against the kingdom of Araluen, had left Gorlan fief to seek them out. If such creatures existed they would give him an edge in the war to come.**

"And seek them out he did." Halt muttered remembering some extremely unpleasant times he spent in those mountains.

No one pursued him for a reasoning on that.

 **It took him months, but he eventually found them. Aside from their wordless chant, Wargals had no spoken language, relying on a primitive form of thought awareness for communication. But their minds were simple and their intellects basic. As a result, they had been totally susceptible to domination by a superior intelligence and willpower. Morgarath bent them to his will and they became the perfect army for him- ugly beyond nightmares, utterly pitiless, and bound totally to his mental orders.**

Once again it felt like if a gust of cold wind had blown through the cabin. Everyone had goosebumps on their arms and was shivering.

 **Now, looking at them, he remembered the brightly dressed knights in glittering armor who used to compete in the tourneys at Castle Gorlan, their silk-gowned ladies cheering them on and applauding their skills.**

 **Mentally comparing them to these black-furred, misshapen creatures, he cursed again.**

 **"** Someone, was in a really bad mood." Gilan whispered.

 **The Wargals, attuned to his thoughts, sensed his disturbance and stirred uncomfortably, pausing in what they were doing. Angrily, he directed them back to their drill and the chanting resumed. Morgarath moved away from the unglazed window, closer to the fire that seemed utterly incapable of dispelling the damp and chill from this gloomy castle. Fifteen years, he thought to himself again. Fifteen years since he rebelled against the newly crowned King Duncan, a youth in his twenties. He had planed it all carefully as the old king's sickness had progressed, banking on the confusion and indecision that would follow his death to split the other barons and give Morgarath his opportunity to seize the throne.**

Everyone just sat there quietly, still slightly nervous from the mention of the Wargals. Had Morgarath succeeded, none of them would be sitting here reading this.

 **Secretly, he had trained his army of Wargals, massing them up in the mountains, ready for the moment to strike. Then, in the days of confusion and grief following the king's death, when the barons traveled to Castle Araluen for funeral rites, leaving their armies leaderless, he had attacked, overrunning the southeastern quarter of the kingdom in a matter of days, routing the confused, leaderless forces that tried to oppose him.**

 **Duncan, young and inexperienced could never had stood against him. The kingdom was his for the taking. The throne was his for the asking.**

"You know," Cassandra said quietly. "My father would've loved to hear this story."

Everything became even mor silent as they thought of the king who had recently passed away.

 **Then Lord Northolt, the old king's supreme commander, had rallied some of the younger barons into a loyal confederation, giving strength to Duncan's resolve and stiffing the wavering courage of others. The armies had met at Hackham Heath, close to the Slipsunder River, and the battle swayed in the balance for five hours, with attack and counterattack and massive loss of life. The Slipsunder was a shallow river, but its treacherous reaches of quick-sand and mud formed an impassable barrier -** "Nothing is even impassible." Will muttered under his breath.- **protecting Morgarath's right flank.**

 **But then one of those gray-cloaked meddlers known as rangers lead a force of heavy cavalry across a secret ford ten kilometers upstream. The armored horseman appeared at the crucial moment of the battle and fell upon the rear of Morgarath's army.**

The group smiled at Halt, knowing full and well who that was.

 **The Wargals, trained in the tumbled rocks of the mountains, had one weakness. They feared horses and could never stand against such a surprise cavalry attack. They broke retreating to the narrow confines of Three Step Pass, and back to the Mountains of Rain and Night. Morgarath, his rebellion defeated, went with them.**

"I told the King he should've just killed the man. It would've saved us future trouble." Halt grumbled and everyone laughed.

 **And here he had been exiled these fifteen years. Waiting, plotting, hating the men who had done this to him.**

Now they were silent for the men who had fallen because of the dreaded Kalakara.

 **Now, he thought, it was time for his revenge. His spies told him the kingdom had grown slack and complacent his presence here all but forgotten. The name Morgarath was a name of legend nowadays, a name mothers used to hush fractious children, threatening that if they did not behave, the black lord Morgarath would come for them.**

 **The time was ripe. Once again, he would lead his Wargals into an attack. But this time, he would have allies. And this time, he would sow the ground with uncertainty and confusion beforehand. This time, none of those who had conspired against him previously would be left alive to aid King Duncan.**

"He wished! You can't get rid of Halt that easy!" Gilan blurted, breaking the silent tension.

 **For the Wargals were not the only ancient, terrifying creatures in these somber mountains. He had two other allies, even more fearsome- the dreadful beasts known as the Kalkara.**

 **The time was ripe to unleash them.**

Everyone was silent, until Maddie piped up.

"Well that was interesting."

Handing the book to Halt, Halt gave a grim smile reading the first few lines.

"Chapter One..."

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 **Hey everyone. I know, I know. Way to long on an update. But I'm keeping my word. I will finish! Hope you enjoyed and please review!**

 **Best Regards,**

 **PFT3000**


	3. Offer

Hey everyone! In the spirit of Christmas I have an offer for you! For every review you leave on one of my stories, I'll review one of yours! I'll do this until January 1st, 2017 starting today, December 22nd. Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hannaka, and Happy New Years(unless you're in China of course).

Best Regards,

PFT3000


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